A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

BIG BUCKS TOO MUCH FOR POPULIST MEASURES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2014 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS“BIG BUCKS TOO MUCH FOR POPULIST
MEASURES”

So much for populism. At least when it
comes to fighting the interests of big-money corporations.

In every vote this week (editors:
use “this month” here if running this column after Sunday, Nov. 9) pitting
the interests of ordinary Californians against those of large companies, the
corporate interests won big. Big bucks essentially convinced millions to vote
against their own best interests.

This
was an unfettered triumph of the very opposite of populism, defined by the
Business Dictionary as “the uncorrupt and unsophisticated against the corrupt
dominant elites.”

The most classic of this year’s
California confrontations came on Proposition 45, which sought the same price
regulation on health insurance that has governed premiums for auto and property
insurance since voters passed Proposition 103 in 1988.

The result – a large defeat for the
initiative – raises doubt whether it will ever again be possible to defeat a
concerted media campaign funded by large corporations. This has nothing to do
with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in “Citizens United,” which essentially
said corporations are entitled to spend as much as they like in politics.
California has never had limits on corporate donations in proposition
campaigns; it has, however, had voters who sometimes could see through
mendacious advertising.

Polls showed voters favored regulating
health insurance prices by at least a 60-40 percent margin months before the
election, before the money began to flow. They felt regulation was in their
best interests.

By the end, the margin was essentially
reversed. What happened? A radio and television blitz that cost insurance
companies more than $57 million, compared with about $2.5 million spent by
initiative backers. That’s a margin of almost 30-1.

Yet, almost all anti-45 commercials
were prefaced by a fast-talking, lowered voice softly announcing the ad was
paid for by the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Wellpoint Inc. (owner of Anthem
Blue Cross), Blue Shield and Health Net. They are the state’s largest health
insurance companies, the same firms standing to see reduced profits if
Proposition 45 passed. The information came nowhere near getting voters to
disregard what they were about to hear.

Further, the ads asserted that 45
would put rate control in the hands of one official who could be corrupted by
“special interests.” Here some of California’s largest special interests were
calling other, far smaller political donors special interests. The pot calling
the kettle black.

Meanwhile, the political post the
health insurance companies got voters to fear, the state insurance
commissioner, is the very office whose occupants have made California the only
state where car and property insurance rates have not risen in the last 25
years.

That happened because of Proposition
103, which passed despite the fact its backers were outspent about 60-1.

The same factors that killed 45 also
defeated this year’s Proposition 46, which aimed to raise potential medical
malpractice judgments and require drug testing of doctors. Again, both causes
appear to be in the interest of ordinary Californians, for whom medical errors
have become one of the five leading causes of death. Again, 46 was favored to
start. It too was devastated by a blitz of big-money advertising that convinced
voters it’s more risky to, for one example, drug test doctors than be treated
by doctors addicted to prescription drugs (federal reports indicate about 15
percent of physicians have such addictions).

What happened between 1988 and today?
One thing for sure: Far fewer voters read newspapers than 26 years ago. Though
thinner than before, newspapers remain the one place where voters regularly can
get objective information on issues they will decide. Voters also are watching
far less TV news than in 1988, cutting the numbers getting even the truncated
information available there.

Instead, more and more voters – like
the general public – get their information from the Internet, where they select
what they see rather than having knowledgeable editors and reporters present
material to them

Not
nearly as informed as before, voters are now more vulnerable to loud, repeated
lies (as several major newspapers labeled the anti-45 and -46 ads).

The only hope is that at least some
hoodwinked voters will realize they’ve been fooled and resolve not to let it
happen again. But there is certainly no guarantee of this.

-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book,
"The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the
Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.